Not Meeting The Inlaws
by EstellaB
Summary: Jill meets the Pevensies, as well as Harold and the formidable Alberta, for the first time. Edmund might be jumping to the wrong conclusion, along with everyone else. Chapter Eight up... In which Eustace faces the proverbial music.
1. Jumping To Conclusions

**Eustace wants to introduce Jill to his cousins, and Edmund gets hold of the wrong end of the stick... or does he? Multi-chapter fic, slight JillxEustace if you squint hard-which, for once, I am. This is set in the Christmas holidays BEFORE In The Firelight (because I tried to write a summer fic, but it didn't work).**

**Same as always. Haven't you worked out by now that I don't own Eustace and Jill, or anyone else? I only play with them so that I can get to see Eustace blush cutely and awkwardly! This disclaimer stands for all chapters, if I forget to add it.**

"Ed! Ed, Peter, Lu, I want you to meet someone! And you, too, Su!" Eustace exclaimed all in a rush, leaping off the train almost before it had stopped moving. Jill was coming to stay at his house for the Christmas hols, but he was going to be staying a week or so with the Pevensies first, as Peter was home from uni for the hols, as Susan woefully put it, "we might never see each other again." He had invited Jill to stay at his cousins' as well, and when she made objections that she couldn't just turn up uninvited, he wrote a very vague letter to Edmund saying that he might be bringing a friend. "I don't want to spoil the surprise when they find out you've been to Narnia," he had explained. "Oh, and if they expect you to be a boy, don't be offended." Jill had raised her eyebrows at this particularly clunky statement, but had said nothing. Now she stepped off the train, swallowing her nervousness down firmly, and attempting to remember all the things that she had faced in Narnia that were infinitely worse than meeting someone's cousins. Come to think of it, the whole trip unnerved her slightly, almost the way she imagined she would feel were she travelling to meet her future in-laws. She turned red at the thought and wondered why she had even made such a comparison.

"You must be Eustace's friend," a cheerful voice commented at about her shoulder. She glanced down slightly to see a very pretty girl, who was even shorter than herself, with bouncing, untamed golden curls and big green eyes. They looked like eyes that had laughed a lot. Jill instantly found herself warming to this person, and suspected that this was Lucy rather than Susan. "I'm very pleased to meet you. My name is Lucy Pevensie. I'm Eustace's cousin, obviously." Jill had no idea how this tiny, slight golden girl could once have been known as the Valiant Queen.

"I...I suppose I am, yes," she replied, returning Lucy's smile almost involuntarily. She had a contagious smile. Eustace had said that Susan was prettier than Lucy, but that Lucy was far more beautiful. Seeing a tall, stately being out of the corner of her eye, someone who she presumed to be the elder Pevensie sister, she understood her friend's statement for the first time.

"Well, come and meet Edmund. Ed! Where are you?... oh, you're there. Ed! This is..." she paused mid-sentence and dimpled at Jill. "I'm terribly sorry; I have completely neglected to ask you your name!"

"I'm Jill Pole. Pleased to meet you." She held a hand out for Lucy to shake, then she turned to meet Edmund. He, unlike Lucy, was tall, with chestnut-coloured hair and green eyes that were very similar to his sister's.

"So, you're Eustace's friend?" Edmund asked, smirking. His meaning was unmistakable, much to Jill's embarrassment. Lucy frowned at him, but it bounced off him like rubber. "Pleased to meet you, I'm sure, albeit a little surprised." He shook her hand heartily, before turning round in the bustle. "By Jove, Eustace, you didn't tell us you were bringing a girl round."

"I didn't say I wasn't, though," Eustace pointed out reasonably. He was bent over some cases, but Lucy could see the tips of his ears glowing red. "I go to a mixed school, Ed. You must have realised that there was a fifty-fifty chance that the friend I would be bringing home would be a girl." He straightened up, then almost overbalanced from the weight of several packing cases piled up in his arms. Jill's conscience smote her-half of those cases were hers-and she rushed to help him. She took just over half of the cases, and gave her friend a hand to restore his balance. "Thanks, Pole," he said softly, smiling at her.

She smiled back. "You're welcome." Lucy raised an eyebrow, but didn't get any further, for Susan came rushing over, all enthusiasm and lipstick, followed by a long-suffering Peter. She did not shake Jill's hand, nor did she gie her a chance to introduce herself, but instead grabbed her by the shoulders and air-kissed her cheeks.

"I'm Susan Pevensie, honey, and I'm so pleased to meet you!" she exclaimed. Jill blinked, shocked at the stark contrast between the "Gentle" Queen and this effervescent presence of jangling earrings and expensive perfume. Through her confusion she managed to stammer out something like an introduction. Peter, appearing beside his sister, took Jill's hand and kissed it. She blushed despite herself. Eustace glared at Peter, though no-one saw. The introductions all finished, Eustace put a hand rather protectively on Jill's arm and led her to Peter's car. Perhaps, seeing that masterful act on the part of a boy who he remembered as anything but masterful, Edmund can be forgiven for leaping to conclusions.

**First chapter over! It's a little short, but I'm really just setting the scene. I wanted this to be a oneshot, but Lucy wouldn't let me. She insisted on making it a multi-chapter, and I've positively no idea where to take it. However... my first multi-chapter Narnia fic... I'm so proud! cries in maternal way**


	2. A Snug Little Hole

**Many heartfelt thanks to everyone who reviewed! If you signed your review, you should have a reply by now; Mikela, just to reassure you, the Lucy/Caspian pairing is not going to be anything illicit, uncanon, or improper. :) The disclaimer from the last chapter still stands: I'm not C.S.Lewis, or wasn't the last time I looked, so I sadly don't own Eustace (or anyone else). Actually, I do own all of Susan's beaus. But they don't count.**

**I'm really sorry if this is riddled with mistakes! My spellchecker isn't working and I don't have a beta. (Any volunteers? You'd be most welcome!) If you do spot an error, please let me know in a review and I'll rework it. Thanks all :)**

Jill stepped nervously into the hallway of her friend's cousins' house. Still cramped from her journey in the back seat of Peter's car, into which had been crammed four adult-sized bodies instead of the recommended two (Susan, preserving her immaculate dignity, had chosen to ride in the front passenger seat), she was wondering why she had let Scrubb talk her into this. She could smell the welcoming, Christmassy scent of mulled wine drifting out from the kitchen. Lucy, who up until that point had been gripping her hand sympathetically, dropped the aforementioned hand to dart forward into the corridor, unceremoniously shedding her coat and hat onto the floor.

"Mother? Mother! Come and meet Eustace's friend Jill! She's perfectly lovely!"

Jill, who was surprised to hear herself described as "perfectly lovely" by somebody she had known an hour or so, found herself accosted by somebody who seemed to be a plump, older version of Lucy herself. "Good afternoon, Mrs Pevensie, and thankyou for your hospitality," she greeted the beaming woman, feeling her shyness evaporate very quickly.

"Oh, you're very welcome, my dear," she said cheerfully. "Please make yourself at home. I'm afraid we don't have a spare room, so you'll be sharing with Lu."

"Oh, good," Lucy said impulsively. Jill allowed herself to grin, feeling instinctively that before much time had passed, she and Lucy would be the closest of friends. One couldn't help liking her, and she seemed to like everyone. Susan had already glided imperially up the stairs, but the boys were now entering behind them, carrying suitcases and gym bags and any other amount of school paraphernalia. "Come and see my room, Jill. We'll come down and get your things later. The boys can leave them in the corridor, can't they, Mother?" Before Mrs Pevensie had a chance to reply, Lucy and Jill had disappeared up the stairs. "I'm so pleased you're going to be staying with us! Ed stuck a camp bed in his room yesterday, thinking that any friend of Eustace's would be a lad and that Eustace would share Peter's little cupboard, but do you know? I felt in my bones that you would be a girl, and I'm so glad you are! And I'm glad Eustace has nice friends at last."

Jill laughed. "You've known me less than two hours. How can you be so sure I'm nice?"

"Oh, I just know. Most people are lovely once you ferret it out of them, but I have the feeling that you're nice without the ferreting."

Jill smiled. "Is this your room?"

"Gracious, no; this is Edmund's room, but we need to drag the bed out of here into my room." Lucy walked calmly through the open door; Jill followed her a trifle shyly. It was reasonably neat, and there was indeed a camp bed taking up the spare floor space. Lucy had paused for breath, but she began to talk again. "My room is a snug little hole, which I love, seeing as I am such a snug little person myself, and you're quite little too, so I'll sure we'll fit in there beautifully. Our room's over there, just round the corner," they were emerging from Edmund's room, dragging the camp bed between them, "so it won't be too much of a fag to get the bed into it. Ah! There we go. This is my room-our room, for the next week or so. And we're all in." Lucy dropped her end of the bed, and Jill followed suit. She was about to take a look around the room, but she and Lucy were interrupted by a voice outside the room.

"Pole? I've got your stuff here. Can I come in?"

Jill glanced at Lucy (it was _her _room, after all), who nodded. "Course you can, Scrubb. But don't fall over the bed on the way in."

Eustace appeared through the door, still red-cheeked and puffing slightly. He was pulling Jill's suitcase behind him with one hand, had her book box precariously balanced on the other, and her gym bag slung over his left shoulder. He held out the wobbling box to her, which she hastily took, and slipped the gym bag onto the bed.

"Oh... Scrubb... thankyou... but you know... you could have just left it downstairs... thankyou though...that's really..." (she was about to say sweet, but changed her mind) "kind of you." Jill said.

"You're welcome. It was no problem," he replied, smiling at her. He hadn't even looked at Lucy, which the girl in question noted with amusement. Jill hadn't noticed. "Oh, Pole?"

"Yes?"

"Can I borrow your French book at some point? I've gone and left mine at school, with the prep in it."

Jill fished in her gym bag and pulled out a pretentious-looking blue book. (Lucy wondered what a French book was doing in Jill's gym bag; Eustace knew his friend to well to be even remotely surprised). "Prep's too hard for me. Tried to do it last Saturday, and gave up in hopeless despair. Remind me never to attempt any foreign language ever again."

Eustace shook his head, but he took the book. "Pole, if you're fishing for compliments, you're looking in the wrong place. I know perfectly well what you got on your last French test, but if you think I'm reminding you to soothe your insecurities..."

Jill gave him a Look, and he grinned, backing out of the room with both hands held up. She tried to glare at him, but failed miserably. "And don't come back in a hurry," she shouted out of the door, now grinning herself. The only response was laughter.

"You and Eustace are close, then?" Lucy asked. The question and tone were innocent enough, but Jill glanced at her sharply.

"Close friends, yes, very much so," she replied, placing just a slight emphasis on _friends. _Lucy got the message, and dropped the subject. Probably Jill was sick of being teased about Eustace, because even at a mixed school, it surely couldn't be that normally to have a friend who was of the opposite sex.

A shout drifted up the stairs, a shout which sounded like Edmund. "Su! That... _person_...is here for you again," followed by a muffled, but indignant-sounding, "Actually, my name is _Andrew..._"

"Oh, heavens, not _him _again," Lucy muttered. "Excuse me a minute," she then said out loud. There was distinct frustration in her eyes. "I must just go and speak to my sister. I'll be back in a tick. Have a look round the room." She waved a hand vaguely at the small space, before leaving the room.

Jill stood up, and glanced around the little room that was to be her home for the next week. She was looking at a photo of Edmund and Lucy when they were about twelve and ten respectively, when a glimmer of something gold made her look up.

She found herself looking into the eyes of a portrait of Aslan.

**Wow... this is perhaps the longest chapter I've ever written for anything! I've got a Plan for the next chapter (ooh!) so it might be up soon, but if not... have a very Merry (and Pippin) Christmas!**


	3. Unwelcome Stranger

**Hi! Again, if you signed your review, you should have a reply by now. Mikela-thankyou! I'm glad you like the way I'm writing them :) Thankyou to those of you who offered to be my beta! I'm very grateful-but elecktrum got there first. **

**Disclaimer still stands. I don't own it, because I am not C. S. Lewis. If I were, this wouldn't be FANfiction, it would be original fiction, and it's not. So therefore... In fact, I don't even own the pairings, except for SusanOC(s), because a) I will always believe that Jill and Eustace being madly in love throughout TLB is canon, due to significant hints on the part of the great CSL himself, and b) Lucy loving Caspian is my mother's fault. Entirely. **

**A/N: It has come to my attention that Jill and Eustace are allegedly 9 in TSC, making them a wee bit young in this fic. I've always seen them as about twelve or thirteen in that story, and I postulate that they became much better friends before Jill met the Pevensies. So here, Eustace is just turning fifteen, and Jill is fourteen. The youngest they will ever be in my stories is twelve (A Curious Contentment; Of Scrabble, Storms, and Secrets), and the oldest they will ever be is sixteen or seventeen (the end of In The Firelight; a filler fic I want to do for TLB). Thanks!**

Lucy, having had a few serious words with her sister, which unfortunately had appeared to make no impact whatsoever, entered her room to find Jill staring at the picture that Su had painted of Aslan, far too many years ago. She should have taken it down, but then, Narnia was still so much a part of her life that she didn't think about it not being part of other people's. She didn't know what to do now, whether to spill it all out to this new girl, or whether to change the subject before it could come up. Jill hadn't even noticed Lucy come in yet. Narnia was so unbelievable... and even Su called her mad now, Su who had been there, Su who had ruled there for fifteen years. How would Jill react, if she were to tell her?

Jill's attention suddenly shifted from the painting. For a minute she had been swept back to Narnia, to that hard hike that she missed so much, and to suddenly be flung back to England, rudely cast out, or so it felt, was something of a shock. Had Lucy caught her staring?

"It's a nice picture," she said calmly, turning away and looking at her new friend. "Did you paint it?"

"No," Lucy replied. "My sister, Susan." That surprised Jill. Scrubb had told her that Susan had turned away from Narnia. Maybe he was wrong. However, remembering Susan's behaviour at the station, she realised that probably, it was just an old picture. Unthinkable, of course, that it was not Aslan. The picture was definitely a picture of Aslan. "Come on. I suspect that my brothers are too busy lambasting that awful Andrew to be bothered, but we can go and collect Eustace, and investigate London."

It only took a very few moments for them to find Eustace, trying to find the other camp bed to set up in Edmund's room. He suspected that he was going to endure hours of teasing from the aformentioned Edmund on the subject of having brought a _girl _home, especially as he was the first in that generation of the family to do so. He did entertain vague notions of wanting Jill to get to know his family for... well, for reasons beyond Narnia, but he was going to wait several years before he breathed a word of these to another living soul, if he ever did.

"Lu," he said, determined not to notice that Jill had changed out of her school uniform, whilst he was dusty and flustered from digging in the cupboards for the bed. "Where _did _Ed put that blasted bed?"

"Oh, Eustace. Bother about that later. Come and help me show Jill our little corner of London. And don't swear."

"'Blasted' isn't swearing," Eustace grumbled, but he followed them downstairs willingly enough. They passed Peter, Edmund, and the unfortunate Andrew on the landing. Andrew was a tall, slight man with an absurdly long nose and an air of fashion and nonsense about him. Something about his face reminded Jill of the way Rilian had looked when still under the enchantment of the Silver Chair. Edmund looked as though he would have liked to run a sword through his sister's beau. In fact, his hand kept straying to where his hilt would have been. Peter looked no more comfortable than his brother, just more restrained. Lucy walked straight past the young men, pausing only to shoot her brothers a fiercely sympathetic look. Eustace and Jill took their cues from her, and pointedly ignored the stranger, stepping past him and out of the door, into the cold, smoggy London air.

**So so sorry for the long wait between updates! I'm on my holidays for the week, but I've had (and still have) so much work to do that it is _impossible _to update regularly. And this is short (and I don't feel confident that it is any good), too... But I have an idea for the next chapter which may (or may not) be online in the next few days. TTFN...**


	4. The Three Cocks

**Readyslavery, I _swear _I didn't steal this idea off you! I'm sorry that it came out similar, though. **

**I'm also sorry it took me so long to update. I've been having problems with the internet connection, and until now haven't been able to stay connected long enough to post a chapter-or to leave a review on any stories of yours that I've been reading, either. Extra long update because it's taken me so long! In fact, I had more ideas, but Lucy was slipping out of character so I stopped.**

**Spell-checker still not working, so if you espy any mistakes, please let me know!**

**I don't own Jill, Eustace, Lucy, or London. However, I do own _The Three Cocks._Don't sue!**

"Ooh, let's go in this one!" Lucy said brightly, peering into the colourfully decorated window of a clothing boutique.

"Next time you ask me to go around London with you," Eustace grumbled, "I will run very fast in the opposite direction." Jill rolled her eyes, and he felt the need to defend himself. "What? We've already been into another three shops selling exactly the same three dresses in exactly the same four shades! What's the difference with this one?" Jill, who was actually wondering something similar (but, being female, enjoyed the endless dresses far more than her friend), shrugged in response.

"I don't know," Lucy demurred. "Jill, I still think you should have bought that greeny-grey one in _Bella's_. It looked stunning on you."

Jill was shocked. The idea of looking stunning in _anything _had never occurred to her. Lucy was stunning. Susan was stunning. Edith Jackle was stunning. She saw herself as anything but. She decided it was time to side with Eustace. "Can we go and get a bite to eat? It _is _pretty rough on Scrubb to have to go into girly shops all the time."

Lucy smiled. "Come on, then. Let me take you to my favourite place, and maybe we can see a picutre-which _Eustace _can choose, as my atonement for making him go into 'girly shops' as you put it. Please, please let me pay; I just got my first wage, and I am so enjoying spending it!"

Jill thought it was a little odd that somebody who had once been queen of a prosperous country should derive so much pleasure from spending the relatively tiny wage of a student nurse. Eustace, who knew his cousin far better, understood that she simply enjoyed spending it on other people. A smile began to drag at the sulky corners of his mouth, and he caught up the last few yards (previously, he had been lagging behind).

"So where are we off to, Lu? I don't know if I trust your taste in food or not. Just as long as you don't try and make me eat something Ed's cooked."

"He's actually become much better. Su gave him some lessons. In any case, we're going to visit the _Three Cocks._ It's actually a pub., but a very respectable one. Their food is heavenly. Eustace, I know your parents wouldn't have any objections. Jill, would yours? It's such a nice atmosphere."

"Oh, my parents wouldn't mind. They might actually be relieved. They don't think I behave like a normal young girl at all," Jill replied with a smile.

"Susan says that about me, but I don't care. Normal young girls are silly, empty-headed things that end up with silly, empty-headed husbands and silly, empty-headed children, and nothing else to live for. Far rather be a positively abnormal young girl, find yourself a good steady job, enjoy the friends you do have, and be happily married to a sensible young man with nice well-brought-up children in ten years' time."

"Why do girls talk about marriage _all _the time?" Eustace complained.

"I do not," Jill contradicted him crossly. "Much," she corrected herself, slightly more truthfully.

"Girls talk about marriage all the time," Lucy answered Eustace, a faraway look in her eye, "because to fall in love is the one thing every girl wants... and the one thing you'll remember, even if you lose everything else."

"Exactly," Jill said triumphantly. Eustace looked despairingly at the sky, before breaking into a reluctant grin.

"Speaking from experience there, Lu?" he teased good-naturedly.

"Mind your nose," Lucy replied, a great deal more sharply than he had ever heard her speak. He glanced at Jill, who looked every inch as startled as he felt. Lucy bit her lip, and her face softened. "Sorry. Come on. Our dinner is only just around the corner, which is a good thing, since those charmingly over-protective brothers of mine would kill me if I were to go on the Underground alone, let alone with two young people in my responsibility, as it were."

Eustace glared. "I like that! I'm nearly as tall as Edmund already, and he's fully grown. I'm perfectly adequate to look after you both!"

Lucy changed the subject. "It's over here; look, _The Three Cocks._" Without further ado, she walked into the pub., which was covered in a somewhat garish mural of three chickens. Jill and Eustace were left outside alone for a moment.

"Scrubb, what on earth was that all about?" Jill asked her friend quietly.

He shrugged in response. "Search me. Just avoid the subject in future." In truth, he was baffled, having never seen anything that close to a "moodswing" from Lucy, but he didn't want to put any sour drop into the new friendship between his cousin and his best friend-Aslan knew Jill needed a friend other than him (which was presumably why He'd provided Lu in the first place). He followed Lucy into the pub., signalling that Jill should come in as well.

The pub. was surprisingly quiet and peaceful inside. Eustace had been worried that it would be terrifyingly modern or smoky or something else disagreeable. His fears had been groundless, and Lucy was already perched at a table, chatting happily to the waitress. She caught sight of the pair, and waved them over. "This is my favourite table!" she called. "Come and share it with me!" Eustace glanced at Jill and shrugged again, suggesting that he had no explanation for his cousin's sudden coldness and equally sudden recovery.

"Mulled wine, both of you?" Lucy asked, as they made their way over to her. "Oh, do, Eustace-this place makes the _best _mulled wine and it's really not that strong."

"I'm eating something first," Eustace replied firmly. "And so is Pole. Not all of us have your astounding ability to absorb drink without any effect whatsoever."

"Oh, I didn't suggest you drank it straight away. Do you want soup for starter? The tomato is my personal preference. I know Ed likes the minestrone, and Peter swears by the oxtail."

**Okay, so it's a weird place to end... sorry. Like I said, Lu was slipping OOC so I had to stop it.**


	5. Conversations and Children

**Thanks everyone for your kind reviews :) **

**Next chapter is here, in which Edmund quizzes Eustace, Jill likes dead languages, and Lucy is a matchmaker.**

**Still don't own it, of course. Sorry about the randomness of last chapter. Hopefully this one is back to normal, and, equally hopefully, now that my exams are over (well, I have chemistry tomorrow, but, frankly, I don't really care any more about chemistry) I'll be updating fairly regularly. I anticipate this having maybe thirty chapters by the end, fifteen with the Pevensies and fifteen at the Scrubbs'.**

**This is another chapter where nothing in particular happens. I didn't really set out with a plot. If you're looking for drama... PM me and I'll send you a link to stories which contain it. I intend this story to mostly meander gently, rather than rush immoderately. Sorry!**

* * *

"Thankyou, from the bottom of my heart, for coming with us today," Eustace said sincerely to Edmund. "I was forced to spend yesterday going into clothing boutiques and hat shops. They even tried to make me go into a jewellers!" He and his cousin were wandering the streets of London, having left the girls to themselves until lunchtime, and were vaguely hoping for a cheap cafe or pub. to appear. "I have never seen Pole act like such a... well, such a _girl_." He frowned. "And I barely got to talk to her the whole day! Lucy seems to have adopted Jill as her new best friend."

Edmund smiled at his cousin's indignation. "Well, you know Lu," he agreed cheerfully. "She does tend to absorb friends somewhat. Not intentionally, of course, but, you see, everyone loves her, and when Lucy is loved, she always reciprocates. In fact, she loves lots of people that _don't _love her, as well." He peered at a half-knocked down building. "Hullo, I'm quite sure there was a pub. there last time I was here."

Eustace laughed. "Ed, the last time you went to a gathering of young pople, hansom cabs were still horse-drawn. It's not as if you were here for some knees-up last week, and it's mysteriously vanished since then."

"I'll have you know I was out... three weeks and six days ago!" Edmund replied, also chuckling. "Not here though, you're right about that." He pulled a semi-disgusted face at the ruin. "Come on, let's find somewhere else. No, I was at the theatre."

"Lucy, Peter or Su?" Eustace asked him suspiciously.

"No! Oh, do be sensible, Eustace. Would Su really come out with her unfashionable little brother? No, with Lucy and her friend Charlotte, another student nurse. They were supposed to be going to the cinema with Lottie's sweetheart and his brother, but he left her. Poor girl was heartbroken, and Lucy cajoled me into taking them. No great hardship; Lu looks after herself, more or less, and Lottie's a lovely girl."

"_Lottie?_" Eustace smirked. "Got a sweetheart, Ed?"

"No," came the placid reply. "Just a new friend. You, on the other hand..." It was Edmund's turn to smirk a little.

"Come off it, Ed. You can't honestly believe Pole and I are more than friends?"

"Actually, I can." Edmund mused for a few seconds, before smiling sweetly and adding "And I do."

Eustace rolled his eyes. "Can't bother me like that any more. I get enough of it from Peterson and Townsfeld, not to mention Pole's friend Tate. Honestly, you're friends with _one _girl and suddenly you're supposed to get married and have three children."

"Three?"

"Jill wants twin girls and a boy."

"Thought about it, then?"

"Oh, shut up."

Edmund smiled. "Don't marry her until we've given her the all-clear, will you?"

"I'm NOT MARRYING POLE!"Eustace shouted, very much getting bothered, despite his earlier claim. A passer-by stopped and looked at him. He nodded sheepishly, and she raised an unimpressed eyebrow, walking off again.

"Of course not." There was absolutely no sarcasm in Edmund's tone, but Eustace still glared at him. "Still, any girl that makes you raise your voice in such a _public _place..."

"She's my _best friend. _Can we please just find a cafe and change the subject?"

"We can find a cafe. Don't try to convince me, Eustace. Remember, I was Narnia's Royal Judge for fifteen years." He shrugged. "You develop a knack for knowing when people are telling the truth."

Eustace thought hard, but came up with no witty retort to that statement.

* * *

"So," Lucy began innocently enough, as Jill sipped a steaming cocoa in the cafe at the V&A. "How exactly did you get to know Eustace?"

"Oh... he's been in my form since we were seconds," was Jill's bland reply. She wanted desperately to tell Lucy about Narnia, but the Pevensies were Eustace's cousins and she didn't want to steal his thunder.

"It must be quite normal to have boy-girl friendships in a mixed school," Lucy remarked. "It would have been unheard of at Bedgebury Girls', where Su and I went."

"It isn't especially normal." Then again, neither was being carted off to another world, where there were such things as giants, serpent-women, ageing kings, and Marshwiggles. Lucy took a mouthful of her own cocoa, and left it at that. Jill's friendship with Eustace, whatever that friendship amounted to, was clearly a hands-off area.

"What are you planning to do in London, then? Have you been before?"

"Never. Mother doubted the Germans' surrender for so long that she wouldn't let me." She grinned. "I don't think Mother believes the war is over even now."

Lucy smiled. "Father is a little like that. Susan's got a notion of getting a flat with some of her friends, but Father is worried that there would be no-one there to defend them from potential invaders. I'm glad. She's better off at home anyway."

"I can't imagine leaving home for good. I'm not even very happy at home, but I can't imagine leaving it except to get married." She grinned. "Tate-Sarah Tate, she's a friend of mine from school-is convinced I'll marry Scrubb. The very idea!"

Maybe it wasn't so hands-off after all.

"Are you going to?"

Jill spluttered. "Marry _Scrubb?_ Are you quite mad? He's... he's my _friend._" She laughed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to call you mad. I'm sure you're not. Tate only thinks that about us because the minute you're friends with a lad at Experiment House, you're supposed to marry him and have six children."

"_Six?_"

"Scrubb hates being an only child. He wants to have lots of children, so that they aren't lonely."

"Very noble of him," Lucy commented drily.

"I think he's really just broody," Jill answered, still laughing. "Boys love babies, every single one of them, but they think they have to be manly and pretend babies are disgusting."

"Edmund genuinely doesn't like babies," Lucy corrected. "But I think that's because they are invariably sick on him. Peter likes babies. About time he got married and had some. I want a little nephew, but I don't want him from Su because every single one of her suitors is a dolt, except the one she won't see, and I refuse to have a dolt as a brother-in-law, even if I get a nephew out of it. We suspect Ed is going to marry my friend Lottie, but he hasn't noticed yet."

"Maybe Scrubb was right yesterday. We've somehow got onto the subject of marriage and babies utterly unassisted."

Lucy appeared untroubled. "We're girls. It's in our chemistry."

* * *

"I'm not marrying Pole." Eustace stuck to his guns in a most admirable manner.

"And Caspian didn't have foppish hair," Edmund replied, rolling his eyes. "Being friends with a girl in that close a way is dangerous, Eustace. It _always _results in either a marriage or a broken heart, and from what I gather those are both risky procedures."

"If I explain to you how I became friends with Pole and _why _we are so close, will you drop it and leave it alone?"

"Maybe," Edmund answered. "It's worth a try, anyway. Let me get our tea first. Black with one sugar for you?"

"White, no sugar, thanks."

Edmund raised an eyebrow. Eustace chuckled.

"Pole. Always up in arms against anyone who takes sugar in their tea. Thinks it's an insult to Englishness or somthing. But you have to have _something _to make it taste a little weaker, so I swapped to milk."

"Right under your skin, isn't she?" Edmund replied. He ducked out of the way as Eustace made to give him a half-jesting clip around the ear. "Right, sorry, white with no sugar, and no questions asked."

* * *

"So, attempting to get back onto a less feminine topic, what are you wanting to do when you're older?"

"Oh... I want to go to Cambridge-Newnham Women's, you know-and read Latin. Scrubb thinks I'm quite mad, but he wants to study Maths, so if anything, it's the other way around." Jill thought frantically. A question was supposed to be answered and then a wuestion asked in return. She wasn't any good at social convention. "Did you always know you wanted to be a nurse?"

"No," Lucy replied. "When I was younger, I just wanted to be queen."

**If at any point Lottie appears at _all _Sue-ish, please tell me! She isn't going to be a main character, but she crept in without my noticing it.**


	6. Of Fatigued Friends

**I present a filler chapter. I'm sorry that it's short and not very good, but I have actually written the next chapter (although I now need to retype it, since my computer has ingested it) so hopefully it will be up reasonably soon. Same again about not owning it, etc.  
**

Jill was exhausted. Eustace knew the signs very well, after having been friends with her for so long. When Pole was just tired, she would become pale and quiet, snapping at anyone who spoke to her. When very tired, she would brighten up a little and begin to ramble in disjointed, nonsensical sentences. If she were utterly exhausted, as she seemed to be now, she was positively eloquent, as if she were trying to disprove any potential sleep-related accusations before they were made. Eustace had only heard her use the word "morphological" twice, and both times she was as exhausted as she seemed to be now. Neither time had it made any logical sense. Or morphological sense, for that matter.

Lucy didn't know the signs. When she and Jill had met the boys for lunch in Covent Garden, the latter had been her usual self, but the afternoon had obviously wrought some sort of change, for by the end of the day, Lucy seemed a little bewildered by her new friend's constantly fluctuating personality-Jill, by the time they all met up to catch the Tube to the West End, was bubbly and confused and extremely jittery-her movements were jerky and uncoordinated. Eustace gave his cousin a look he hoped was reassuring, before turning to his friend.

"Tired, Pole?" he asked with a grin.

"I'm not tired!" she retorted sharply. Eustace looked pointedly at Lucy, who smiled, understanding the message and amused by his method of communication.

"Did you have a good day?" she asked her brother, not wanting to cause a conflict between the two friends.

"It was certainly interesting," he replied diplomatically. Eustace, heroically, managed not to glare at him.

"Do tell," Lucy encouraged him. Now Eustace glared. Edmund rolled his eyes.

"Maybe later," he offered.

Eustace, meanwhile, had fallen back to walk with Jill. "Are you all right?" he asked her, no grin now to suggest that he was teasing. "Why are you so tired?" Seeing that she was about to object, he added "Don't give me that, Pole. I wasn't born yesterday, you know."

"I know," Jill agreed reluctantly. "I just _am _tired, I suppose." She nearly laughed at his badly-masked concern. If Scrubb had ever bothered to put two and two together, he would have noticed that she had been curiously afflicted with spell of extreme tiredness "regularly once a month" for the past two years. Boys were so clueless sometimes.

"You will still enjoy the play though, won't you?" he asked almost nervously. Lucy, who seemed to be on good term with most of the population of London (the obvious exception being Susan's beaus), had managed to get them discounted tickets to see a new West End show. They were meeting up with Peter at the theatre. Jill loved all types of stagecraft, but she had never been to the West End before, or seen a musical. She grinned with anticipation. _No _time of the month could spoil that.

"Of course," she assured him.

* * *

Edmund wandered along the street, mind far away, sure that Lucy would pull him back if he accidentally wandered into the road. She, in turn, understood him well enough to let him have his silence, knowing that he would tell her when and if he wanted to.

His mind kept going back to that conversation with Eustace. His cousin had stalled for time shamelessly, stirring his tea, getting up to put more milk in it, and drinking almost the whole cup before he set it down. Eventually he realised that he had to say something, so he did.

"_Ed, I… we… well, Pole and I went to Narnia."_

Edmund had looked hard at his cousin, wondering if he was pulling his leg. Eustace had been one hundred percent, serious, however, and he had also seemed very guilty.

"_Sorry. It's just that… well, you and Lu, you'd only just been told you couldn't get back to Narnia, and I didn't want to… sorry, I mean. It was the wrong thing to do, keeping it quiet."_

For about two minutes, he had been exceedingly angry with his cousin, not for going back to Narnia (because begrudging others Narnia had been how Susan started down the path she had taken, and he wasn't willing to do that) but for keeping it secret for so long. What would he have done, though, if it had been the other way round? He knew the answer, and he couldn't exactly be angry with Eustace, who, after all, had only just begun to act nobly when he went back to Narnia. He probably hadn't been very practiced at choosing the right thing to do at the right time.

He couldn't be angry with Eustace, not about Narnia (for if it had been Aslan's will for his cousin and Jill to go there, Edmund didn't see who he was to oppose that), and perhaps not about keeping it secret either. Eustace had really had the best intentions.

"_I, ah, Pole and I will tell you the whole story soon. But I need to talk to her about it first. It's her story too."_

And at that comment, he had dismissed the brooding for the time being, and reverted back to teasing, because that was always safer. With Eustace distracted by Jill, though, he was free to brood once more.

Perhaps it wasn't altogether a good thing.

* * *

The play had been very good, Lucy thought contentedly, as she walked to the Tube. Edmund seemed to have lifted from his doldrums a little, and she attributed that to the entertaining performance they had just seen. She hadn't seen the show before, despite a friend in the chorus who normally got her cheap tickets to the latest, and she had enjoyed it immensely. Jill seemed to have done as well: Lucy could hear the girl singing one of the numbers a few feet behind them. Eustace was laughing good-naturedly at her.

"Ed?" Lucy ventured. She was flanked by her two brothers, an arrangement they had adopted a long time ago for her safety (and to her irritation) and now continued out of habit and convenience. "Did you enjoy the show?"

Edmund smiled and replied that he had. Just as quickly, however, the smile was gone. Lucy didn't say anything, and she gently pinched Peter in the side to prevent any comment from that corner. Instead, she fell silent, allowing Edmund's mood to hang in the air, until-

"How often do you miss Narnia?" he burst out. So that was what was bothering him. Well, that was understandable, but Lucy began to wonder what had brought it on.

"Almost always," she replied. "It's normally at the back of my mind."

"Mine as well," Peter confessed. "I don't remember missing England so much, even in the first days of our reign."

"I don't miss it all of the time," Edmund said, feeling somehow guilty. "But then, when I do think about it, I miss everything terribly-even the things that I used to complain about."

"You certainly complained," Lucy teased.

"Isn't it horrible," he continued thoughtfully, not noticing Lucy's remark, "to think that generations have probably passed since we were there? Caspian and Drinian and those fellows might very well have grown old and died. I-"

"Don't think about that part of it," his sister interrupted. "I mean, do think about it, of course, but there are too many wonderful memories to spoil them with regret." One day, she would learn to heed her own words.

"I never really thought that one day we would be coming back here," Peter said. "Sometimes, I wake up and look out of my hall window, expecting to see the view from Cair Paravel. But, you know-"

Edmund cut him off. "Where's that blighter Eustace?"

**Please review! It does make my day :D**

* * *


	7. Lost in London

**Just a small note-Jill wearing reading glasses is a bit of fanon I stole off Rosa Cotton (I'll put it back where it came from if you want, Rosa). Go and read everything she's ever written. You'll be glad you did. (But leave me a review first, please). **

**A longish update, to make up for the filler-ish-ness of last chapter, and the long wait before that.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Narnia. Or the London Underground, for that matter, though I did get spectacularly lost in it quite recently, on my first adult-free trip to our capital.**

"Where are we?" Jill wondered nervously, as he brought her down from the dark, smoky London street into the dark, smoky Underground station, neither of which was familiar. She glanced around, and then noticed something else. "Also, where are your _gloves?_"

"I left them in the theatre," Eustace replied sheepishly, thinking that the detail probably wasn't relevant right now. "My hands were too hot during the performance so I took them off and-" he looked at Jill, who seemed to be trying to get his attention. "Yes?"

"You are an ass, Scrubb," she sighed. "First you lose your gloves, and then you lose us." She didn't seem especially angry, just weary, but he knew that would all change as soon as he confessed they would have to take the Tube alone. He couldn't believe it. Five minutes and they'd lost sight of his cousins-and he knew better than to surge on in a city he hardly knew and Jill didn't know at all.

"I'm sorry," he began, "but-wait, what?"

Jill was, judging by the direction of her gaze, still upset about his gloves. "It's five below, at least! Scrubb, your hands are _blue."_

Eustace shrugged. It wasn't nearly as cold as Narnia. There were more important things to worry about, anyway. Such as, he had no idea how to get to Finchley from the West End. He hadn't really been paying attention to their journey on the way there. Getting separated from the Pevensies wasn't really something he'd anticipated. He called up a fuzzy picture of the Tube map in his mind's eye, mentally tracing the various lines and trying to work out which would take them to a station where they could change for Finchley. Until something distracted him. "Pole?" he asked confusedly. "What are you doing?"

"Give me your hands," she clarified irritably. "Your left one first." She tugged her gloves off with her teeth, and kept them clamped there. She took Eustace's left hand in both of hers and began to rub it, trying to get the blood pumping through the frozen veins again.

At least, that's what Eustace _presumed _she was trying to do; he couldn't ask her, however, because she was muttering to him-or to herself-through a mouthful of glove. He wasn't sure what she was saying, but from the tone of her voice, it seemed to be a sort of rambling remonstrance. He did catch snatches of it-about Puddleglum and giants and last time he was blue-tinted. The memory made him smile now, but he did have other things to worry about.

"Pole, this is probably-" he started to say, intending to finish with "not necessary at the moment."

Jill stopped rubbing his hand, and he was almost disappointed for a moment, before he remembered that he was going to ask her to anyway and gave himself a quick scolding. Edmund's teasing had got inside his head.

"Put it in your pocket to keep it warm," she instructed, spitting her gloves into her hand and putting them into the pocket of her coat. "Give me the other one."

Eustace held out his right hand, and Jill began to rub it as she had the other, still muttering almost frenziedly to herself, and suddenly Eustace understood that this was her way of dealing with the Tube station being a small, dark space. Well, he could allow his hands to be a distraction for a while. He didn't mind terribly. Once she was done with all this, though, he wondered what he would say. Ah. There was his answer. Jill tried to take his left hand again. He snatched it away from her.

"Thanks, Pole. I can feel my fingers again." He shoved both hands deep into his pockets. Jill had to be rational now. "Here we are. I have a confession to make. I don't know how to get to St Pancras from here." He saw Jill take a deep breath in, as if preparing for some sort of verbal explosion, and decided to cut in. "However, I do at least know that we need to get to St Pancras, and we can catch a workhorse from there to Finchley. I need you to come with me and find a map, and I need you not to worry about the fact that the station is small and cramped and underground. You've done scarier things than this, Pole. Serpents and giants and-"

"I'm not scared!" Jill snapped.

"I know," Eustace replied calmly, not believing a word of it. "I'll hold you to that. Come on," he added, taking his first steps towards the information kiosk and feeling unspeakably childish in a world full of adults. Jill hung back, and, worried that she would get swept off in the bustling crowds, he grabbed her hand roughly, and dragged her forwards with him. He addressed the man at the kiosk, trying to sound confident and adult, and hoping his voice wouldn't crack or squeak in the middle. "Excuse me, good sir, but do you happen to have a Tube map about your person?"

"_Good sir?_" Jill hissed with raised eyebrows, but very quietly, so that only her friend heard. The kiosk attendant gave the two young people a dubious look, but handed them a map. Jill, who had heard a great deal from her parents about the Londoners' desire for money, was pleasantly surprised to find that it was free. Eustace, who (out of a subconscious desire for moral support) had not yet dropped Jill's hand, pulled his friend into a corner where they both pored over the map. Then, and only then, did he let go of her.

"Finchley Central is on there," Jill announced at last. "That's the station we got on at. We don't have to go to St Pancras."

"All wonderful," Eustace said, fighting hard to keep the sarcasm from his voice, "but I still have no idea how we need to get there. What station are we in?" He glanced up, realising that he hadn't even bothered to look before entering. "Sloane Square," he read, the name emblazoned in creaky, dusty letters on the wall. "That's there."

"Okay, so we need to catch... westbound M&D to South Kensington-that's only one stop-then, er, eastbound-what the dickens is the blue one? This wretched key is almost unreadable. Piccadilly to..."

His pauses made Jill nervous again. She snatched the map away from him. "Give it to me, Scrubb. Sloane Square to South Kensington, one stop on the westbound M&D. South Kensington to, er..." She sighed, and handed back to Eustace impatiently. "Oh, I can't do anything with this. I don't have time to get my reading glasses out. You complained about girls' map-reading skills, _you _do it."

"I was," he muttered. However, their journey was planned in his mind by that point, and he pocketed the map, hoping that it would be easy (and cheap) to buy tickets. "Look for signs to the westbound platform," he said. "And," he took her hand again, "don't let go. Lu got separated from Su and Ed once, got caught up in the crowds. Don't go vanishing on me. I don't really want to go trawling London, looking for you. I've got far better things to do with my holidays."

"Don't be any more of an idiot than you can help. I'm not going anywhere without you. You'd probably end up in Canada."

Who had sorted out their journey? Eustace very nearly asked her that same question, but kept himself from comment, with only a slight scowl on his face. This wasn't a normal Jill, this was a very frightened Jill, no matter how well she hid it. Instead, he simply tugged her forward, towards the westbound M&D. They would be fine, he thought, just as long as they didn't split up.

* * *

"Scrubb!" Jill called. They had nearly managed it. They had come from Sloane Street to Tottenham Court Road, via South Kensington and Leicester Square; all the difficult parts were over, and there was only one stint left on the Tube; the station was smoky, dark, and full of disreputable characters, and there was _absolutely no way _she was allowing him to disappear. Of all the times! Goodness only knew what sort of trouble he'd get into. "Scrubb!" she shouted, hoping she sounded angry instead of scared. It was nearly eleven at night-she was a fourteen year old girl alone in the middle of London, with every right to be scared. She jolly well wished Scrubb would answer. Or that Lucy or Edmund or Puddleglum were there. "Eustace Scrubb! If you get yourself hurt, I'll kill you!"

"I'm here," a voice said reassuringly from a long way away. If Jill had been paying full attention, she would have noticed that Eustace sounded every bit as scared as she felt. In actual fact, she just felt irritated that he was patronising her. "I told you not to let go."

"Don't you ever do that again," Jill growled. "Where are you? There are drunken sorts blowing smoke into my faces from every which way. I'm not tall enough to slap them."

"Need my protection, Pole?" Eustace smirked, now appearing through the blue air. He held out his hand. "We're nearly done. Just don't let go again. I thought-well, you had me worried for a minute," he admitted. Even he knew, despite his limited knowledge of the capital, that Tottenham Court was not the safest of stations to be stuck at._Why_ it wasn't safe to be stuck at wasn't something he wanted to consider. He looked around the badly-lit station. It was almost impossible to see the signs, but he knew that the lines crossed and that getting a northbound Northern line wasn't going to be enough. "Look for a sign to High Barnet, will you? There are two northbound Northerns from here, and we need to get the right one. The other goes to Hendon and out that way."

He had spoken casually, but he was now very concerned indeed. The trains, to the best of his knowledge, stopped running at midnight. He decided that this was perhaps something Jill didn't need to know. It did mean that this was probably their last chance to get to Finchley that night, though, and he didn't fancy camping out with the drunks and the painted girls in the station.

"There!" she suddenly said excitedly, dropping his hand to point. Eustace, who had just caught sight of some unpleasant-looking men in the corner, grabbed it again and tried to look intimidating and possessive. He was taller than most of them, anyway, he told himself. The sign to High Barnet was a dismal sight by most standards, but he had rarely been happier to see something.

It was only when they were safely seated (well, standing in a corner, really) on the Tube that Eustace truly began to realise how badly that evening could have gone wrong. They had been so very lucky in so many respects-the Tube journey had been reasonably simple-only a few changes-none of the ill-intentioned men that frequented the Underground late at night had taken an especial fancy to Jill-even when he had lost her, she had turned up again scared but unscathed-not to mention that he had not run out of money, or been robbed. He took a deep breath in, and quietly thanked Aslan for having looked after them. It didn't alleviate his feelings of guilt. Apologising to Jill was never easy, because it meant swallowing his pride, but he squeezed her hand more tightly.

"Sorry I got us lost," he whispered to her, not really wanted the others in the carriage to know that they weren't Londoners. She squeezed back.

"Thanks for looking after us," she replied, also in a whisper. Remarkably, her tone seemed free of sarcasm. She sighed. "Now all we have to do is find a way of explaining this to the undoubtedly angry Pevensies that await us."


	8. Aftermath

**A/N: I'm Very Dubious about this chapter. Any suggestions will be more than welcome :D**

**Disclaimer: Again, I don't own it. Check the name of the fandom if you aren't sure.**

"I could positively murder you if I wasn't so relieved to see you!" Lucy all but shouted, keeping her voice down for the sake of the neighbours. "Have you any idea how much you scared me?"

"Lucy-" Eustace began, but was cut off.

"Peter and Ed are out there looking for you now!" she continued, dragging them both into the house behind her and shouting to her mother that they had turned up. Mrs Pevensie didn't turn up just then, perhaps deciding that her daughter would handle the situation better. Lucy had every reason to be angry, having been stationed at the gate for nearly an hour. However, she was one of those whose flashes of temper were rare and short-lived. Eustace knew she would forgive them quickly. Jill certainly hoped so. "If Father wasn't out of town, he would have gone too. If anything happens to them-"

Despite his very genuine feelings of guilt, Eustace almost snorted at that. As if any intoxicated East Ender could best either Pevensie brother in a fight! "Nothing will happen, Lucy. And I'm very sorry, I really am." He was absolutely sincere.

Lucy ran her hand through her hair. They were still standing in the hall. "Eustace, sorry doesn't take away the fact that you took Jill through some of the most dangerous places in England late at night."

Eustace knew. He felt more guilty about that than about scaring his cousins, which, when the ordeal was done with its death throes, was another thing in the ever-growing list of things he needed to forget. "If I could have brought us home any other way, I would have done. By the time I knew we were lost, I didn't know how far away you were. I though coming straight back was the safest thing to do." Something seemed to pass between himself and Lucy then that Jill didn't catch. "I looked after her, Lu!"

Jill opened her mouth to retort sharply that she didn't need to be looked after, but changed her mind. It probably wouldn't have helped their case. Instead, she offered a rather sheepish apology.

"Oh, it's hardly your fault, my dear," Lucy reassured her as genuinely as she could.

"Actually, if Scrubb hadn't dropped back to walk with me, then-"

"Then you would still be wandering the streets, and alone too, which doesn't bear thinking about," Eustace interrupted her sternly. "It was no more Pole's fault than mine, Lu."

"I don't care where the blame lies! I was scared stiff and my brothers wouldn't let me help! They're out there looking for you, and-"

"They're kings of Narnia, Lucy!" Eustace snapped back, his own fear suddenly catching up with him and making him short-tempered. "I don't think any Londoner will put up the same sort of resistance that they had to face there!" Lucy's face was a picture, but Eustace didn't have time to be amused by it. "Pole's been to Narnia," he explained, as a kind of afterthought. Lucy still didn't say anything. "I think," he continued, trying desperately to take control of the situation, "that you and Pole should go up to bed. I will wait and face the verbal lashing from Ed and Peter. Then tomorrow, hopefully, this whole situation will be able to be discussed with some sort of clarity."

Lucy, instead of pushing, took his advice seriously. Eustace had known she would. "You may be right," she agreed. Suddenly she seemed to come back to herself. "Oh, Jill! You must be worn out with worry! I know I shouldn't like to find myself lost in London after dark, and it's my home town. Let's get you sorted out. We can deal with my cousin in the morning."

"It really wasn't-" Jill attempted to say again. _Why does everybody always assume I've been scared? _Poor Eustace was going to have to carry all the blame from his cousins. Before she could get any further, though, she was hurried upstairs by Lucy. At the top, she turned and shot the nervous-looking Eustace a grateful smile. That relieved him. He was forgiven from one corner, at least.

1111111

"Did Eustace really look after you?" Lucy asked Jill as they got ready for bed. "Or is he just saying that?"

"I don't need looking after," Jill said firmly. "But yes, he did. He glared very defensively at a man in Tottenham Court that was saying... _things_ to me. I'm sure if he had had the chance, he would have done something ridiculous and foolhardy."

Lucy considered. That didn't match at all with the Eustace she had once known, and it only barely resembled the Eustace she had known since Narnia. "What happened in Narnia?"

"We made absolute asses of ourselves," Jill replied honestly. She curled up into a ball in her bed. "Myself most of all. It was wonderful. The best thing that's ever happened to me. Mostly. There were very bad parts, but it was absolutely worth it." There was no jest in the rambling contradiction. Lucy understood. "IthrewScrubboffacliff," Jill added in one breath, sounding about a miserable as Lucy had ever heard anyone sound.

She blinked.

"I didn't mean to." Jill had never told anyone before. Of course Eustace knew, but they'd never discussed it. That part of their journey was the only part they hadn't talked about in minute detail, a thousand times. "I was being an idiot. I didn't mean to, but if Aslan hadn't been there, he would have died. I would have killed him." She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. "G'nigh'," Lucy thought Jill said. It didn't sound very clear.

11111

Eustace drummed his thumbs on the table. Hopefully Edmund would arrive home first. Of course, he would be angrier, but Edmund's anger was easier to handle than Peter's. Peter's anger always seemed so well-founded, so magnificent. When he was angry-which wasn't very often, all told-Peter became every inch the High King.

Labouring under excessive feelings of guilt, Eustace didn't think he could cope with magnificent anger. He was already feeling magnificently angry at himself. However much he had told Lucy it was unintentional, he felt as if there was something he could have done to make things work better. Perhaps he could have taken a cab, but he hadn't had enough money. If he had had enough money, they certainly would have been mugged, but if they hadn't wandered off on their own, it wouldn't have mattered. But why had he been so scatty that he had lost sight of his cousins?

It was good that the phone rang, interrupting his internal monologue. He picked it up before his aunt (whom he suspected had been manning the two family phones the whole evening, until their arrival) could. "Pevensie household, Eustace Scrubb speaking," he said, before realising that it was almost certainly Peter or Edmund calling, and subsequently how daft he must have sounded.

"Eustace! Are you and Jill alive and in one piece?" Edmund. He didn't sound livid, exactly, but then it was a dodgy connection.

"Two pieces; we're two people," Eustace replied, then wished he hadn't. Edmund didn't seem to notice the habitual sarcasm.

"I'm calling from a phone box in Trafalgar, but I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll have a look for Peter, but I think he went to the other side of town, so I won't hang around waiting."

Eustace nodded. Why wasn't Edmund shouting at him? "Right," was all he said.

"You aren't off the hook yet, mate, but I'll allow you to make your defences before I judge. Are you really both all right?"

"Pole is fast asleep by now, I would expect. She was almost dropping on the Tube. She and Lucy went to bed, and I tried to convince your mother too as-"

"Money gone. See you," Edmund cut him off, and then the line went dead.

Eustace rested his head on the kitchen table, which was where he'd moved the phone to. The other was in the Pevensie parents' bedroom, despite his protests that Mrs Pevensie needed a decent night's sleep. Perhaps Peter would call. It was awful that Peter was out there looking for them, when he'd done nothing to deserve it. Ed hadn't, either, he supposed, but he and Edmund had been close for a long time. He didn't know why that made it seem easier.

Eustace, afterwards, could never remember what his last coherent thought was before he dozed off, but that was how Edmund found him, face down on the wooden surface and muttering in his sleep. He wasn't going to wake Eustace-maybe just bring a blanket downstairs for him-but his cousin was a light sleeper and woke as soon as Ed's shadow fell on him. "I'm so sorry," were the first words out of his mouth.

Edmund shrugged. "About London? It's all right. It's good to be out in the winter air, or something. Anyway. You have five seconds to justify yourself before I become furious and ask you what in Narnia you thought you were playing at."

"I can't justify myself. It was my fault, not Pole's at all. I was an ass to get so far behind you, and once we were so far behind, I didn't want to risk getting more lost. At least where we were, I knew my way to the Tube."

Edmund smiled tiredly. "I think you just did justify yourself, perfectly." He sat down opposite his cousin. "I don't envy you, having to bring a girl home through the tube at this hour."

"It wasn't very nice," Eustace admitted. "I'm hardly adequate protection."

"You're taller than me," Ed pointed out.

"And you're a king of Narnia." Eustace buried his head in his hands. "Ed, I feel worse for putting Jill in jeopardy than I do you or Peter, but you're family. Is that terrible? I don't understand."

"Not at all," Edmund assured him. Perhaps he was closer to the mark with the teasing than Eustace liked to believe. This was a very sober, worried cousin he had before him. "Don't go doing it again, though." He patted his friend on the shoulder. "Off you go to bed. I'll field all calls from Peter. Sweet dreams, and so on."

"It's my fault," Eustace said stubbornly. "I should take the blame."

Edmund pulled his cousin up from the chair. "My goodness, you've already spent too much time with Peter this holiday. You're going all noble on me. It wasn't anybody's fault. Off you go. Night night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite."

Eustace allowed himself to be pushed out of the kitchen door.

11111

Eustace couldn't ever remember having been this awkward with his cousins. His aunt had hugged both himself and Jill very tightly, made them an enormous breakfast, and now they were sat at the table trying to eat it. It wasn't that Lucy and Peter hadn't forgiven him, exactly; it was just that they hadn't had the clearing-the-air talk that was needed, and he had no idea how to start it. The dark circles under his cousins' eyes just made him feel more nervous. Edmund had made several remarks that could have led to a conversation-Edmund was really being something of a hero-but Eustace didn't feel confident enough to take the cues.

He looked over at Jill, who had taken her glasses off and was chewing on the end. She hadn't done that in years, he mused; he hadn't thought that she would be so nervous in this sort of situation. Shaking his head fondly, he reached over and pulled them out of her mouth. She glared at him, and went to put them back, but he stopped her. "Your father made you pay for the last pair," he reminded her.

Jill sighed melodramatically and put the glasses back on. In truth, she had only been two pounds out of pocket and not four, and she remembered that she still hadn't paid him back. That little exchange had broken the ice, however, and Lucy laughed. Eustace was excessively relieved by that sound. He hoped that somebody would shout at him. It was the natural order of things, after all.

"Jill," Lucy said instead, smiling. "I suppose you'll be able to tell me _properly _now how you two became friends."

A brief look of confusion flickered across Peter's face, and Eustace realised that his eldest cousin was quite behind matters. For his benefit, he explained, "Pole and I went to Narnia."

"When?"

"Yes, when?" Lucy echoed.

Eustace squirmed. "About four years ago," he admitted sheepishly. "Jolly nearly five, I suppose. I'm so sorry I kept it schtum for so long. It seemed like the kindest thing to do at the time. Ed and Lu had just been told that they wouldn't be going back-it seemed like rubbing it in your faces. Now I can see that you wouldn't have taken it like that."

There was a moment of silence whilst each of the Pevensies did his or her own private battle with jealousy. Peter was the first to defeat his foe. He broke into a broad grin. "Why, of course you must tell us all about it," he said. "Where would you like to begin?"

It took thre hours and several cups of tea apiece before Eustace and Jill had finally managed to get their story told, what with the constant interruptions and do-you-remembers and exclamations from the Pevensie siblings, not to mention rather snarky corrections and contradictions from each other. There was particular general astonishment that Caspian could ever be a married man-a father-an old man-a dying man. Jill remembered how Eustace had reacted when he found out, and expected much the same from the Pevensies; what she had not counted on was that they had all been through it once before.

"Caspian is gone," Lucy said, looking slightly seasick. "Just as all the others are. Tumnus and Aravis and Mr Beaver and all of them."

"In Aslan's country," Jill reminded her, quickly. "We saw him there. He was young again, Lu."

"He even helped to vanquish Them at Experiment House," Eustace added, catching Jill's tone. "It was his idea-at least, I suppose Aslan put the idea there, but he verbalised it." He smiled outwardly, but it felt terribly wrong to be reassuring his older, wiser cousins. It was normally the other way around. "It was the first time I've ever been called a murderer, a lunatic and an escaped circus performer in the same breath."

Jill laughed, and after a bit, the others joined in. "So," Lucy said. "How did you like stewed eel?"

"**I don't know how portable telephones were back then, or how many there might be in a household. If that's horribly out of era, please forgive me (and let me know, so that I can change it).**


End file.
